Hopeful Monster
by oftimeandspace
Summary: Love, death, and time. And a yellow and pink girl with stars in her smile.


There are whispers and fears even in the TARDIS, and Rose counts them all in her dreams, the Beast's voice echoing in the corners of her mind. _I am beyond lies, I am eternity_ it whispers, insidious, and she wakes whimpering, the Doctor's arm wrapped around her, the buttons of his shirt pressing into her spine.

"Just a nightmare." He says, the brush of his lips against the back of her head as he speaks comforting. "It's common for the human brain to construct terrors and fantasies about the misunderstood. Nothing will come of it."

Rose sighs and presses back into him, tucking her feet underneath his, and tries very hard to believe the lie.

-

The first thing she does when they return to the TARDIS, dripping wet and covered in a grayish-blue slime the Doctor swears is harmless pollen, is call the shower and scramble down the hall. From the console room the sound of the Doctor shouting protests follows her, slowly fading as she goes further into the depths of the TARDIS.

Warm humid air greets her when she opens the bathroom door, and she grins and pats the wall with a fond 'thanks,' shedding stained clothes as she goes. For a few minutes she stands still under the cascade of water, head bowed to watch the gray water slowly turn clear. Her mind drifts, back to the day's adventures, the feel of the Doctor's calloused fingers pressed against her hip that morning, sighs and shouts and whispers in foreign tongues, and she's humming before she realizes it.

The room echoes her, magnifying the splash of the water and the sound of her breath as she continues humming, the wordless sounds slowly resolving into something like music in her mind. Up and higher, a brief twist back to a lower pitch, a song that is endless and old and contains all the whispers of the universe's languages.

Golden, like suns and stars and she twists the words--

--She gasps, choking on the spray of water, and flings herself backwards, slamming her back into the tiled wall. The song fades, leaving her head aching. She looks down at her hands, expecting something special, some light or memory or something to explain this fear, but all she sees are blue stains marring her carefully applied nail varnish.

-

Six weeks after she is pulled into Pete's world she goes shopping with Jackie. "Thought we'd go out, find you some nice things for work." Jackie had said that morning over breakfast, and Rose had seen the fear and sorrow in her eyes and nodded agreement.

They go to Henricks, her mum laughing about the oddity of it, and Rose grins half-heartedly, remembering running, far away and free with a wondrous stranger, and says, "People here look different. Have you noticed?"

Jackie shrugs, still digging through one of the racks to find a jacket in the right size for Rose. "Not particularly. Course, the fashion's changed--here we go, just your size-- but the people look the same."

Rose takes the proffered jacket; sleek black leather, cool and confident in a way her old clothes never were. "I dunno. ...It's like they're blurry round the edges. Not quite here."

Jackie grins. "Your eyes are giving out in your old age." She bumps her shoulder against Rose's, always her loudmouthed, joking mum from the council estate, even now with millions and a fleet of servants.

"Maybe." Rose says, and tugs the sleeves of the jacket into place, turns to survey herself in a full-length mirror attached to a pillar nearby. Her reflection stares back at her, hard and cool, and Rose remembers pale eyes and thinks she is ready for the future.

--

She advances quickly in Torchwood, working her way up from the low level clerk position Pete secures for her to team leader in three years. Mickey calls her boss when they head to the pub, laughing at her over a pint of beer, and it's almost familiar.

"I just can't believe you were able to talk them down like that."

She shrugs, takes a sip of her cider. "Made it up, honestly. Had no idea what I was saying."

Mickey laughs. "Somebody's got to be the smart one, I guess. Reckon you're the Doctor now that it's just us."

"Guess so." Rose says, making a serious face, and then starts laughing. "Reckon next time I should use more science babble though."

They laugh together, cradling their drinks, and she is content.

-

She lets him into her bed and cries the first night he returns, pressing her mouth into the curve of her arm to muffle the sounds. The beat of his single heart matches hers; the warmth of his torso pressed against her back unfamiliar.

"I'm sorry." He says, the exhaled whisper rustling her hair against her nape and she jerks, startled, gulping down a sob. He presses his hand into the warmth of her side, his fingers wrapping around the curve of her hip. "I don't know what to do." And he sounds so lost and scared and new, and her heart breaks for both of them and the other Doctor leaving them to glue all the pieces back to together.

Rose sniffles, using her free hand to brush tears from her face. "Me neither." She says, and her voice almost sounds normal in the darkness of the room. "Reckon there's a manual lying about somewhere?" She jokes, taking refuge in her old banter.

"Perhaps. But then again I imagine your mum has already burned my suit and accidentally destroyed it, so we're on our own for this."

Rose exhales, thinking of the Doctor watching them, the plea in his eyes,_ please stay, you have to go_, and she says, "Not like you would've read it anyway, what with being a great genius and all."

"Precisely," He replies, his lips against her skin curving into a smile. "Weeeeell, that and I'm sure even the TARDIS couldn't properly translate the instructions that come in your average user manual."

Rose laughs.

-

This is a possible end to the story: after that first night they go forward into a new life with entwined hands, and he brings her roses because he knows she'll roll her eyes and say how cliche it is, and she'll listen intently while he explains the intricacies of growing a new TARDIS.

"How long are you going to stay with me?" She'll ask, seated above him on the couch while he solders parts together to create a new navigation system for the ship and he'll tilt his head up to look at her and smile, remembering an exchange on a faraway planet and say, "Forever."

-

After awhile she begins to notice changes. Or, rather, she notices changes in others. Her mum's hair becomes less blond over the years, and Tony grows faster than she did, all feet and elbows and red hair. Mickey settles down with a girl named Zoe and makes the Doctor and Rose godparents to the kids.

She's thirty two when they finally finish making the TARDIS travel worthy. "Where to?" he asks, grin manic, and she replies with a giddy, "Anywhere, anywhen!"

They save planets and countless alien races, take in the sight of planets with green sands and four moons, meet Marie Antoinette and the first Dalai Lama. Rose arches against him in the console room and they laugh when the TARDIS hums disapprovingly, fight over silly things and disappear into new rooms sometimes just to get away from each other, and time passes unbidden.

It becomes harder and harder to judge the passage of time. The Doctor makes calculations and then sighs in frustration, still unable to drive with much accuracy.

"Look how young you look." Jackie sighs, wrapping her arms around Rose when they return for Christmas, and Rose grins while the Doctor explains something about the relativity of time.

Sometimes, in an alien bazaar or in the wardrobe room or some other place, Rose will realize she's let her hair go again, and twine her hair around her finger musingly. Her roots are always brown.

-

"I'm sorry." She says, and the Doctor looks at her with a bewildered expression. His hand against hers is thin, knobby knuckles and parchment skin.

"Everything ends," he says, softly, voice hoarse. "....Who'd have thought I'd become cliche in my old age?" He grins at her, his smile still young.

"I don't want to be alone." She whispers, and her voice cracks on the last word. "Please."

"Ah, Rose, you'll never be alone." He replies, sitting up to look closely at her, intent. "You have all of time and space to find new people. You live long enough, you accept that people leave, that you'll go on alone to find someone new and start all over again."

"You know that?" She asks.

"He knew that."

-

This is the thing about wishes. They're not supposed to come true.

It's the idea, the thought behind the desire that is the most important part of wishing; the action of the moment instead of the hope for the future.

She has wandered the earth and seen the stars from the inside of a spaceship and the knolls of forgotten and unnamed planets for three hundred and seventy three years, and she remembers a young girl speaking of foolish things and a man regarding her with a sad expression.

Sometimes she wanders, what if the past was changed? Because that's the funny thing about time travel-- you can change the present, the future, the history of the universe itself, but you can't go back and tell one girl forever is terrifying in its infinity. Rose remembers the Reapers and time falling in on itself, loops of potential actions caused by one silly wish that came true.

Sometime she wonders if it is happening all over again.

-

After a few centuries she begins to forget small facts about herself. Her first boyfriend, her favorite brand of jeans, why she bleached her hair that first time. She looks in the mirror in her bedroom on the TARDIS and it's like looking at a long-lost relative, someone she knows, if only she could drag up the memory.

This is both terrifying and liberating.

--

Nearly five hundred years after she and the Doctor took the first trip in their TARDIS the ship finally breaks down, a problem beyond her limited knowledge. She spends most of her time in the Vortex, unencumbered by the complexity of controlling the ship by herself. This time when she throws the lever to leave, there is a loud groaning sound and too much resistance from the TARDIS; she shoves all her weight into the lever, determined to at least land and not be stranded in the Vortex for eternity.

The alarm blares, and she winces and pats the console ineffectually, unsure what to do. There is a loud crash from outside and the groaning stops; she turns to look at the main screen, which simply says 1994, and under that, "offline." Nothing happens when she tries to reboot the system and move, tracing directions with her finger from the manual attached to the console.

Determined to do something, she curls up in the console room in her pajamas, tongue poking through her teeth as she concentrates on the user's manual in her lap. None of the countless languages in the booklet make any sense; after awhile she starts pressing buttons and pulling levers just to see what happens.

On the fifth day she runs out of milk and the lights begin to dim. She dresses and takes a few things with her; a duffel of clothes, an old passport, her mobile that hasn't been used since 2037, a journal the Doctor started to document their travels.

The location readout tells her she's somewhere in the Great Plains of North America. She locks the TARDIS door behind her out of habit and strides away, heading southeast.

She imagines the future, a girl named Marion, and grins. In the distance a lone tree fades into the distance, and she never looks back.

-

In a dusty diner on the outskirts of the Pine Ridge reservation she looks up from her coffee just in time to see a familiar man walk past her table, brown coat swishing around his legs.

She blinks and manages to swallow her sip of coffee without sputtering too much, and stares. The man slides into a stool at the bar, propping his elbow against the counter, immediately directing all of his manic charm at the middle-aged waitress behind the counter.

She sinks lower in her seat, calculating the amount of time it would take to gather her things and leave before he notices. Centuries have passed since he turned away from her on that beach, and now she understands why the TARDIS fought so hard that last time she flew it, and she wants, for the first time she can remember in the last half century, to cry and scream and curse him.

"--strange things happening lately?" She hears him ask. She groans, softly, and begins shoving her things in her purse, slings her jacket on, and glances about to make sure no one is watching.

She's nearly to the door when she hears a voice behind her. "Sweetie, you forgot to pay!" The waitress behind the counter says to her; Rose winces and turns to look at her, just as the Doctor swivels to look at the commotion.

He always had an expressive face, she remembers, and she almost feels gleeful as she watches his grin fade into shock and then slack hurt confusion, his mouth a perfect 'o' of surprise.

'I'm sorry." She says, ignoring him, stalking forward to deposit a crumpled stack of bills on the counter beside his hand. His hand twitches, and she continues, "Silly me, things I do sometimes. Just keep the change."

The door chimes behind her. Heat rises in waves around her, the tarmac of the parking lot soft and hot beneath her flip-flops. She starts counting under her breath, waiting.

One. A curse from a couple in loud t-shirts and baseball caps as the diner door is flung into their faces. Two. Three. The soft slap of his trainers as he follows her across the lot. Four. "Rose!"

She exhales, scrapes sweaty hair off her neck. Five, six. The snick of her key in the locked door of her car. Her name repeated, frantic. Seven.

His hand, wrapping around her arm, turning her to face him. His eyes dart back and forth, taking her in, unbelieving, and he asks, "Rose?" And she hates him for not understanding.

-

She refuses to go back to the TARDIS, though she finally capitulates and tells him to come back to her motel room. He follows her into the room, saying nothing as she drops her keys on the bedside table, kicks off her shoes and strips out of her sweaty shirt, changing into a clean tank top.

"Well?" She says, finally, curling up on the twin bed and nodding at him to sit in the chair beside it.

"Wh-" He begins, stops, throat working. "How did you get here?"

"I don't know. Went to leave the Vortex, the TARDIS started making noises, and here I am."

"He actually grew one." He breathes.

"We grew one." She replies, biting, "And after he died I didn't see the point in going back, so I kept traveling."

Her eyes downcast, staring at the tan quilt on the bed, she can't see him, but she can feel him move in his chair, leaning forward. She knows what his next question will be so she says, "Old age. He was 83."

He inhales slowly, and she feels the bed dip slightly as he slides out of his seat and crouches down, leaning his forearms against it so as to touch her. "And you?" He says quietly, staring up at her.

"I thought I knew what I wanted." She says, twisting the quilt in her hands. "You were brilliant, everything I wanted and you told me to leave, and I couldn't, I just couldn't. So I came back, I wished, because I was frantic and all I wanted was to be with you again and be safe. And everything hurt so much, I was drowning in song, but you came back. And I thought, it came true, it's okay that I did something so foolish because he fixed it."

Distantly, she realizes she is sobbing, kneading the quilt uncontrollably, hunched into herself, and he has moved to gather her to him. His hand curls into her hair, the other one pressing into her skin as he pulls her to his side. "I didn't know," she continues, gulping, frantic, "I didn't know, I thought I was being so grown up sacrificing myself. I didn't know!"

She wails, crying for her family and her friends and the Doctor who died so long ago, for the normal death she'll never have, and the Doctor holds her until she stops shaking.

-

He watches her as she enters the TARDIS, sets her things down, turns to him. "This doesn't make it better." She says, with eyes he has seen countless times in the mirror.

"I know." He replies. He was always so horrible at apologies.

-

She fucks him in her old bedroom, the bed just as she left it half a century ago. She keeps her eyes open, watching him, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded with desire. If she's honest with herself-- so easy to be when you have all of eternity to come to terms with yourself-- she'll admit that as a twenty-year-old imagining this at night with her hands hot against her skin she would have thought he'd talk uncontrollably. Later he will, when they become used to each other again, but this first time it's hard and fast and silent.

She comes with a soft sigh, dragging him down with her. Supernovas burn themselves to death, an explosion of cosmic being into nothingness; she grins, sated, pushes him off of her and turns her back to him, falling asleep quickly.

She dreams of nothing, and it is good.

-

He tells her about Gallifrey, the cold knowledge like a stone in his stomach that he had destroyed his people. And she tells him about the screaming of the Daleks, the unbearable beauty of a song burning like fire, the faces of people she loved dying all around her.

They're never exactly Rose and the Doctor again, happy companions together against the world. They spend too much time quiet, contemplative, too old and similar now to drag each other out of melancholy.

He changes his face for the eleventh time, and then the twelfth; she changes in ways so large they cannot be seen, and they walk out into the darkness together.

-

_What does it mean_, she once asked him, twenty years old and terrified facing the darkness. And he had said _don't listen_, voice crackling over the comm. She didn't understand, she couldn't understand, still trapped by the belief that he held the answers and the answer was _us together_.

"It has to be done." She says, holding the watch in an outstretched palm, finally understanding what everything was leading to.

He stares down at it, then looks up at her with pale frightened eyes. She can see the veins in his neck slowly turning dark blue, the poison working its way through his circulatory system. He has less than an hour and they're wasting it arguing. "I can't make you do this." He says finally, the words halting as he forces them out through the pain.

"What else am I going to do?" She smiles, reassuring. "Learn to knit? Read all the books in the universe? Might as well do something useful."

He closes his eyes, unable to look at her, the truth of her words. He nods, once, and allows her to drag him over to the Chameleon Arch. She presses the watch into his hand, too short to snap it into place in the helmet.

The Doctor pulls the helmet down snug against his head. His eyes are large and terrified, a little lost boy finally facing the darkness of the unknown.

"The one adventure I'll never have." She says, smiling, echoing his words from millenia ago. Her fingers fit perfectly between the sides of the helmet and his cheekbones, and she caresses his sweaty skin, memorizing the feel of it against her fingertips.

"I'm sorry."

"I know." She says, accepting, presses a kiss to the dry skin of his mouth. And she steps back, and throws the switch.

-

She walks up the ramp slowly, staring in wonder at this new place as the Doctor watches. And she walks down the ramp, pauses with her hand against the worn panel of the TARDIS door, listens to the ship hum its approval, and pulls the door's handle.

-

Rose Tyler grins, and steps into the unknown.


End file.
